Social Media and Research Publication Activity During Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Trend Analysis
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JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INTERNET RESEARCH Taneja et al Original Paper Social Media and Research Publication Activity During Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Trend Analysis Sonia L Taneja1*, MD; Monica Passi1*, MD; Sumona Bhattacharya1, MD; Samuel A Schueler1, MD; Sandeep Gurram2, MD; Christopher Koh3, MHSc, MD 1National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Digestive Disease Branch, Bethesda, MD, United States 2Urologic Oncology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States 3Liver Diseases Branch, National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD, United States *these authors contributed equally Corresponding Author: Christopher Koh, MHSc, MD Liver Diseases Branch, National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases 10 Center Drive Clinical Research Center, 5-2740 Bethesda, MD, 20892 United States Phone: 1 301 443 9402 Email: [email protected] Abstract Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of rapid dissemination of scientific and medical discoveries. Current platforms available for the distribution of scientific and clinical research data and information include preprint repositories and traditional peer-reviewed journals. In recent times, social media has emerged as a helpful platform to share scientific and medical discoveries. Objective: This study aimed to comparatively analyze activity on social media (specifically, Twitter) and that related to publications in the form of preprint and peer-reviewed journal articles in the context of COVID-19 and gastroenterology during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: COVID-19±related data from Twitter (tweets and user data) and articles published in preprint servers (bioRxiv and medRxiv) as well as in the PubMed database were collected and analyzed during the first 6 months of the pandemic, from December 2019 through May 2020. Global and regional geographic and gastrointestinal organ±specific social media trends were compared to preprint and publication activity. Any relationship between Twitter activity and preprint articles published and that between Twitter activity and PubMed articles published overall, by organ system, and by geographic location were identified using Spearman's rank-order correlation. Results: Over the 6-month period, 73,079 tweets from 44,609 users, 7164 journal publications, and 4702 preprint publications were retrieved. Twitter activity (ie, number of tweets) peaked in March 2020, whereas preprint and publication activity (ie, number of articles published) peaked in April 2020. Overall, strong correlations were identified between trends in Twitter activity and preprint and publication activity (P<.001 for both). COVID-19 data across the three platforms mainly concentrated on pulmonology or critical care, but when analyzing the field of gastroenterology specifically, most tweets pertained to pancreatology, most publications focused on hepatology, and most preprints covered hepatology and luminal gastroenterology. Furthermore, there were significant positive associations between trends in Twitter and publication activity for all gastroenterology topics (luminal gastroenterology: P=.009; hepatology and inflammatory bowel disease: P=.006; gastrointestinal endoscopy: P=.007), except pancreatology (P=.20), suggesting that Twitter activity did not correlate with publication activity for this topic. Finally, Twitter activity was the highest in the United States (7331 tweets), whereas PubMed activity was the highest in China (1768 publications). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the potential of social media as a vehicle for disseminating scientific information during a public health crisis. Sharing and spreading information on COVID-19 in a timely manner during the pandemic has been paramount; this was achieved at a much faster pace on social media, particularly on Twitter. Future investigation could demonstrate how social media can be used to augment and promote scholarly activity, especially as the world begins to increasingly https://www.jmir.org/2021/6/e26956 J Med Internet Res 2021 | vol. 23 | iss. 6 | e26956 | p. 1 (page number not for citation purposes) XSL·FO RenderX JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INTERNET RESEARCH Taneja et al rely on digital or virtual platforms. Scientists and clinicians should consider the use of social media in augmenting public awareness regarding their scholarly pursuits. (J Med Internet Res 2021;23(6):e26956) doi: 10.2196/26956 KEYWORDS coronavirus; COVID-19; social media; gastroenterology; SARS-CoV-2; research; literature; dissemination; Twitter; preprint utilized social media (eg, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok) for Introduction communication and to facilitate interdisciplinary discussion COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 [13,14]. (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus), emerged into Social media platforms such as Twitter are social networking public view in December 2019 and resulted in a pandemic that services through which any user or organization with an account, has affected six continents, and it continues to indiscriminately including those belonging to the scientific and medical affect individuals of all ages, races, and ethnicities. According communities, can share information and achievements. to the World Health Organization, there have been more than Compared to other professions, the health care community has 33,000,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, including been relatively reluctant in utilizing social media for professional more than 1,000,000 deaths reported by the end of September purposes related to concerns on its potential impact on 2020Ðonly 9 months after its emergence [1]. With time, employment, medicolegal liability, and relationships among different countries faced surges in cases straining their health patients and colleagues [15-17]. Nonetheless, as these platforms care systems in unprecedented ways. It is during these times continue to gain global acceptance and utilization, the ability that the rapid dissemination of information related to this highly to collect and analyze data from social media platforms has contagious virus and its management has been crucial. become essential in understanding health care±related needs, Even though initial experiences related to COVID-19 primarily shifting public health interests, and highlighting areas for further described respiratory complications, reports of medical study [18]. In this study, we aimed to explore gastrointestinal/gastroenterology (GI) involvement became COVID-19±related social media activity pertaining to the fields more evident with increased clinical experience [2]. Although of gastroenterology and hepatology during the initial 6-month the extent of GI involvement with COVID-19 was uncertain period of the COVID-19 pandemic, when knowledge about the based on early published experiences, it was postulated that this virus was new and limited. Furthermore, we aimed to compare could be substantial due to the identification of the entry activity on social mediaÐspecifically TwitterÐwith that via mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 that utilizes the angiotensin-2 more traditional channels of medical information sharing and (ACE2) receptor pathway, which is found throughout the GI distribution such as publications in medical journals and preprint tract, liver, and pancreas. Given the pathogen's similarities to repositories. the coronavirus known to cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Methods (MERS), investigators suspected that prior experiences with these preceding viruses could provide insight into the current Data Collection for COVID-19±Related Twitter COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, GI luminal manifestations, the Activity involvement of the liver and pancreas, and the management of Data were collected using the publicly available Twitter unique GI patient populations were all considered areas of analytics platform Symplur Signals [19]Ða health care social clinical and research interest [3-5]. Considering the rapid spread media analytics platform that utilizes algorithms with natural of COVID-19 and the consequent interruption of health care language processing to provide in-depth information on Twitter services across multiple fronts, the publishing of international activity. Data on topics related to COVID-19 were collected by experience with COVID-19 along with frequent updates in performing specific searches categorizing the topics by organ clinical guidance documents have assisted the GI community system (Multimedia Appendix 1). Data were captured over the in managing this novel disease [6-9]. Furthermore, in an effort first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from December 1, to mitigate the spread of infection, endoscopists have 2019, to May 31, 2020. In an effort to capture the longitudinal encountered significant changes to endoscopic practices by evolution of social media use during this period, each month adopting new preprocedure regulations, use of enhanced was split into half (ie, day 1-15 and day 16 to the end of the personal protective equipment, and the rearrangement of month). Data collected included total number of tweets and endoscopy units to facilitate social distancing [10,11]. retweets, total number of impressions, total number of users, Additionally, with the implementation of national ªlockdowns,º and user data, including the place of originÐby country the ability to share clinical